In the majority of operations of repair and maintenance performed upon motor vehicles such as automobiles or trucks or the like, a facilty is utilized which includes a convenient ramp or hoist mechanism which raises the vehicle above the floor a substantial distance to permit the mechanic or other repair or maintenance personnel to operate beneath the vehicle and gain ready access to the majority of operative portions of the vehicle. While such repair hoists and the like provide a relatively convenient operating area for the repair and maintenance personnel, certain problems arise in the use of the wide variety of tools employed in the maintenance and repair services. In essence, the repair personnel must choose between maintaining the tools close at hand or face the difficulties of constantly moving to and from the tool storage cabinet as different tools are employed. For the majority of small hand tools such as wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, and the like, repair personnel may often rest such tools upon convenient surfaces found in the hoist mechanism. However, for larger tools, a problem in resting tools upon such surfaces often arises. The difficulty in managing such larger tools is more acute in connection with tools operative from compressed air. As is common in commercial and industrial repair facilities, many tools are operative from a remote compressor and coupled thereto by a high pressure air hose. The hose is usually left coupled to the air powered tool even during nonuse and presents a constant problem due to the loose hose extending from the tool to the floor area beneath the hoist.
One of the most commonly used air powered tools is known as an air ratchet which generally comprises an elongated often cylindrical housing having an air pressure hose coupling at one end and a ratchet drive at the other end. The drive terminates in a conventional square drive which permits a variety of sockets and the like to be interchangeably coupled to the air ratchet for use. A handle portion of the air ratchet supports a trigger mechanism used to activate the air powered portion of the ratchet. While the constructions and configurations of such air ratchets vary somewhat between manufacturers, they all share the characteristic of substantial weight and substantial difficulty in finding a convenient resting place during temporary periods of nonuse. Because the typical use of such air ratchets in repair and maintenance operation involves frequent intervals of brief use interleaved with frequent intervals of temporary nonuse, mechanics and other repair and maintenance personnel frequently find themselves constantly bending over to retrieve an air ratchet from the floor area or slowed in the work activities by the need to move about beneath the vehicle to retrieve the air ratchet from the previous resting place.
Because the inconvenience in retrieving tools encountered by mechanics and other repair and maintenance personnel is directly reflected in their efficiency and the costs of vehicle repair and maintenance, a need exists in the art for a convenient easy to use means for temporarily holding such air ratchets when not in use.